First class cabin on Hawaiian’s A321neo, coming to a new San Diego-Maui route in 2018. (Image: Hawaiian)

In domestic route news, Hawaiian Airlines will increase service to the islands from the West Coast next year; Alaska Airlines is about to begin a new Hawaii route from San Francisco; American adds Oakland as a spoke from a major hub, and plans several other new routes; JetBlue adds more transcontinental Mint service this month; and Spirit unveils 10 new domestic route starting next spring.

Hawaiian Airlines, which is on the verge of beginning commercial service with its new Airbus A321neos, said it will use the planes to expand service from the West Coast next year. The airline will add a new route on May 1 between San Diego and Kahului Airport on Maui using an A321neo, and will begin extra seasonal summer flights with the aircraft (in addition to its regular schedule) between San Francisco and Honolulu from May 26 through July 31, and between Oakland and Kona from May 26 through September 2. The carrier has also scheduled an extra seasonal flight between Los Angeles and Kahului, Maui from June 1-August 31, using an A330.

According to FlightGlobal.com, Hawaiian will actually start flying the new A221neos on December 19, deploying them on inter-island routes to familiarize its flight crews with the aircraft. The carrier is due to put the planes into mainland service starting January 8 from Oakland to Maui, and on January 18 from Portland to Maui.

Speaking of Hawaii, Alaska Airlines next week will start flying the last of several new Bay Area routes that it announced earlier this year. On December 14, the carrier will inaugurate daily service between San Francisco and Kona, on the Big Island, using a Virgin America aircraft. The SFO departure time is scheduled for 11 a.m.

American will use an A320 on its new Oakland-DFW route. (Image: Jim Glab)

American Airlines will kick off new Bay Area service next spring. The carrier plans to start daily flights on April 3 between Oakland and its Dallas/Ft. Worth hub, with an 11:50 a.m. departure from OAK and a 9:10 a.m. departure from DFW, using an A320. American also announced some new domestic routes out of its Chicago O’Hare hub starting next spring, including twice-daily ORD-Charleston, S.C. flights beginning May 4; and weekend-only service from ORD to Bangor, Maine and Myrtle Beach, S.C., starting June 7, using American Eagle/Envoy Air CRJ700s. At Phoenix, American will kick off daily flights to Amarillo, Tex. and Oklahoma City on April 3, using Mesa Airlines CRJ900s. On the same date, it will add twice-daily LaGuardia-Portland, Maine service with Enviy Air ERJ140s.

Elsewhere, American’s 2018 schedule includes some new Saturday-only seasonal routes, all flown with regional jets, including DFW-Asheville, N.C., DFW-Myrtle Beach, DFW-Wilmington and Los Angeles-Bozeman, Mont., all operating June 9-August 18; LAX-Flagstaff, Ariz., May 5-September 1; and New York LaGuardia-Traverse City, Mich., June 23-September 2. Finally, on February 14, the company will terminate its American Eagle/SkyWest service from Phoenix to Bullhead City, Ariz./Laughlin, Nevada, due to a lack of passenger demand.

The next step in JetBlue’s ongoing expansion of its premium-cabin Mint service, with lie-flat seats, comes on December 10, when the carrier is slated to introduce a Mint-equipped aircraft on one of its daily San Diego-Boston flights, adding a second daily Mint flight on the route starting December 20. It already offers Mint cabins on two daily San Diego-New York JFK flights. Last month, JetBlue added Mint service on two daily New York JFK-Las Vegas flights.

Spirit Airlines unveiled a bunch of new domestic routes that will kick off next spring, including daily year-round service from Baltimore/Washington to Denver beginning March 22; daily year-round flights between Tampa-Los Angeles, Tampa-Las Vegas and Orlando-Las Vegas starting April 12; daily seasonal service from Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Minneapolis-St. Paul beginning April 12; and daily seasonal flights from Detroit to San Diego and Portland kicking off April 23.

Roundtrip fares from the Bay Area to Hawaii as low as $337 (Image: Google)

How low? Well, as of today you can fly nonstop from San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Portland (mostly 1-stop) and Seattle in early December, January February and March for about $340-$380 round trip. That’s quite a deal for winter flights. And the deals are good to Honolulu, Maui, Kona, and Kauai.

SFO-HNL fares dipping to new lows according to this fare history chart from Fare Detective

Plus it appears that all airlines serving Hawaii are in on the deal, with Hawaiian and Virgin America as the most aggressive discounters.

To get the deals, you have to be a bit flexible with travel dates— for example, most of the cheapest fares require mid-week (vs weekend) flights. However, we even found deals on long weekend flights departing Thursday, returning Monday so shop around.

A sampling of cheap fares from the SF Bay Area on Google flights in early February

According to Google Flights, these fares are available for roundtrip in early December, January, February and early March. (Bookable Saturday, Nov 25 and subject to change).

Aloha! Will you go this year?

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Cruising into Lihue Airport on Kauai from SFO on United will get easier with two flights per day (Chris McGinnis)

United is making a big grab for the lucrative Hawaii market, adding 11 new nonstops from the mainland, and adding even more lie-flat seats on overnight flights. It is also making its Denver hub a major, year-round gateway to Hawaii from the midwest.

More flights usually results two things important to frequent travelers: lower fares and more opportunities to redeem points to get to paradise. However, demand for Hawaii trips has increased so much recently that the additional capacity might not result in significantly lower fares or redemptions. Time will tell. However, it never hurts to set up fare alerts and keep an eye out for cheaper mileage redemptions in light of this announcement.

With the addition of the 11 flights, United says that it now offers the most flights between the mainland and Hawaii than any other carrier.

But flights to Hawaii are not cheap! Looking at August roundtrips in United economy class, Chicago-Maui and Denver-Maui are running a cool $1,400. Houston-Maui is $930. Cheapest SFO-Maui is $460, and LAX-Maui is about $570.

United adding more lie-flat seats on Hawaii flights (Chris McGinnis)

Starting this summer, all overnight flights between Hawaii and Chicago, Denver, Houston, Newark and Washington will have lie-flat seats up front. (Hawaiian Airlines is now offering lie-flat seats on some of its mainland-to-Hawaii flights. American recently added lie-flat seats on flights between Honolulu, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Delta flies lie-flat between ATL and Honolulu. United has had lie-flat seats on its SFO-Lihue 757 flights for a while now, but it appears that those flights, as well as most all non-Honolulu flights will be be served with 737s from SFO.)

United will add non-stops from San Francisco to Munich (Photo: Flughafen Munchen)

With United executives promising in recent weeks that the company would focus on building up its domestic network, the carrier just announced 47 new daily roundtrips will be added to its summer schedule, almost all of them in domestic markets.

The one new international route included in the announcement is San Francisco-Munich, which will operate on a seasonal daily basis starting May 24. United will use a 787 on the route (which is already served by United’s Star Alliance partner Lufthansa).

On another key international route – Newark to Tel Aviv – United said it will up-gauge one of its two daily flights to a new 777-300ER, equipped with the airline’s new Polaris business class. That change, which takes effect May 5, will make EWR-TLV the second international route to get the new aircraft. (The first will be SFO-Hong Kong, where a 777-300ER will replace United’s 747-400 service starting March 25.)

New domestic routes added to United’s schedule include five from its San Francisco hub, six from Chicago O’Hare, two from Denver, and one each from Newark and Washington Dulles. MileagePlus members should be aware that because these routes were just announced, there should be plenty of award seat availability right now.

The new San Francisco routes, all starting June 8, include three flights a day to Santa Rosa, California (a very short route – 65 miles as the crow flies); two a day to Spokane; and new daily service to Cincinnati, Detroit and Hartford Bradley. The announcement did not specify the aircraft types on each route.

From Chicago O’Hare, United will begin three daily roundtrips to Rochester, Minn., and three a day to Champaign/Urbana, Ill., beginning June 8. On the same day, it will start new daily service from ORD to Charlottesville, Va.; Reno; and Spokane. And on August 1, United will begin twice-daily service from O’Hare to Columbia, Mo.

Other new routes include twice-daily flights from Washington Dulles to Springfield, Mo.; daily service between Newark-Sacramento; daily flights from Denver to San Luis Obispo, Calif., all starting June 8; and daily Denver-Columbia, Mo., service beginning August 1.

United is adding a new route from Denver International to Hawaii (Image: Jim Glab)

The company also plans to expand some existing routes from seasonal winter service to year-round operations this summer. Effective June 8, that includes San Francisco-New Orleans, Chicago-Tucson, Dulles-Ft. Lauderdale, Newark-Salt Lake City and Denver-Kona. On July 1, service from San Francisco to Kalispell, Mont. (gateway to Glacier National Park) also becomes year-round.

United also said it plans to increase frequencies in 15 existing markets. United will boost its Atlanta schedule to eight flights a day from both Washington Dulles and Newark. Newark-Detroit goes up to seven daily roundtrips. The new daily frequencies in other markets include Denver-Albuquerque (5); Denver-Ft. Lauderdale (2); Denver-Orlando (4); Denver-Tampa (2); Newark-Portland, Ore. (2); Dulles-Jacksonville (3); Dulles-Providence (4); Dulles-Portland, Me. (4); Dulles-Roanoke, Va. (3); Dulles-Charleston (S.C.), 3; Chicago-Ft. Lauderdale (3); and Chicago-Ft., Myers (2).

In domestic route developments, Delta will put new aircraft types on routes to San Francisco, Portland and San Diego; Alaska adds a couple of transcontinental markets; Southwest grows at Austin and Denver; and Spirit jumps into four Ohio-Florida markets.

Delta this year started to take delivery of new Airbus A321s, and according to Routesonline.com, customers in San Francisco and Portland will start to see them in 2017. The site said Delta’s advance schedule shows the new plane being introduced on a few of its many San Francisco-Atlanta flights starting in early March, and replacing the 737-900ER on its Portland-Detroit service starting in June. Delta said the A321s will feature big, pivoting overhead bins; next-generation seats in all three seating categories; large entertainment screens; USB and power ports; and LED lighting that changes with the phase of flight. (The A321 is the plane that seems to be replacing the aging Boeing 757, which is no longer being made.)

Meanwhile, following the recent news that JetBlue plans to extend its front-cabin Mint service onto the New York-San Diego route next August, thepointsguy.com reports that Delta apparently will be putting a 757 with front-cabin lie-flat seats onto one daily flight in the same market effective in June 2017. (Update: Airlineroute.net tells us that Delta had this aircraft on a SAN-JFK flight this past summer as well.) It’s the same aircraft type Delta uses for the lucrative JFK-San Francisco/Los Angeles routes. JetBlue has embarked on a long-term expansion of Mint service onto more transcon routes. Similarly, United has deployed a couple widebody B777-200s on SFO-BOS (but with standard first, not lie-flat) to take on JetBlue’s Mint expansion.

Speaking of San Diego and transcontinental routes, Alaska Airlines just announced a new one: The carrier said it will begin daily roundtrips between San Diego and Baltimore/Washington International starting March 15. The eastbound leg will be a red-eye. Alaska already flies to BWI from Los Angeles and Seattle, and its other San Diego transcons include Boston, Orlando, and new service to Newark starting next week. Last week, Alaska also kicked off a new daily roundtrip between Portland and Newark. Next spring, Alaska will start San Jose-Newark service as well. In other news, Alaska just began weekly seasonal service on Saturdays between Bellingham, Washington and Kona, Hawaii.

Southwest Airlines will begin new service on March 13 linking Kansas City with Austin, offering one daily roundtrip. Southwest also plans to expand its limited service between Denver and Albany, N.Y. The airline currently flies that route on weekends only, and just on a seasonal basis, but on April 25 it will make Denver-Albany a year-round route with daily flights.

Spirit Airlines has added Ohio’s Akron-Canton Airport as the newest dot on its route map. Last week, Spirit launched daily flights from Akron-Canton to Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale and Ft. Myers. The Tampa and Ft. Myers routes will be seasonal only. Next spring, Spirit will add seasonal flights from Akron-Canton to Myrtle Beach and year-round service to Las Vegas.

Delta has started new service from Raleigh-Durham to Paris. (Image: Jim Glab)

In the latest international route developments, Delta adds a European route from Raleigh-Durham; Turkish Airlines makes its Atlanta debut; Japan’s ANA will add a pair of U.S. routes to Tokyo Haneda as American carriers wait for word on new Haneda slots, with Hawaiian Airlines the first winner; Air India plans new Newark service via London; and Air China boosts Newark frequencies.

It’s not really a big Delta hub, but Delta is the largest airline at Raleigh-Durham, so the carrier has started new daily flights from RDU to Paris Charles de Gaulle. Delta is using a 164-seat 757-200ER on the new route to Paris, where customers can connect to 75 onward destinations thanks to Delta’s joint venture partners Air France, KM and Alitalia.

Turkish Airlines is using a 777-300ER on its new Atlanta route. (Image: Boeing)

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport rolled out the water cannon this week to welcome the first flight there from Turkish Airlines. The Turkish carrier will offer daily service on the Atlanta-Istanbul route with a 777-300ER. It’s the ninth U.S. gateway for Turkish Airlines, along with New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Boston and Washington Dulles. Delta was supposed to resume seasonal service this month between New York JFK and Istanbul, but it decided last month to suspend that service, citing security concerns.

Tokyo Haneda Airport is on the airline industry’s mind these days as the U.S. Department of Transportation is expected to announce any time now which U.S. carriers will get new daytime slots there. Since Haneda opened up to transpacific flights, U.S. carriers have been restricted to arrivals and departures late at night or very early in the morning, which made it difficult to attract passengers, even though Haneda is much closer to downtown Tokyo than Narita Airport.

Tokyo-bound tails at Honolulu International (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

But an amended agreement with Japan will open up some daytime slots at Haneda starting October 30, and the big U.S. carriers have been clamoring for those much-desired rights. In its first decision on Haneda, DOT granted Hawaiian Airlines rights to serve Haneda from Honolulu and Kona – but mostly because it was willing to accept an overnight slot. Hawaiian plans to fly the route four times a week from Honolulu and three from Kona, but the starting date hasn’t yet been set. And even though the new daytime slots haven’t yet been awarded, Delta and United have already started taking reservations for new schedules this fall on their Los Angeles-Haneda and San Francisco-Haneda routes respectively.

Meanwhile, Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) already won new daytime slots at Haneda, and said it will use them starting October 30 for daily flights from New York JFK and Chicago O’Hare. ANA also flies to Haneda from Los Angeles, Honolulu and Vancouver.

August 15 is the starting date for Air India service from Ahmedabad to Newark Liberty International, a route that it will fly three times a week with a 787-8. The new service will operate via a stop at London Heathrow. Also at Newark, Air China plans to increase frequencies from four a week to seven on its EWR-Beijing route from July 22 through August 24. It also serves New York JFK.

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Editor Chris McGinnis

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